Parallel
by margaret-melody
Summary: Hermione hasn't recovered from losses during the Wizarding War. She accidentally falls into an alternate reality and finds comfort there. But is the comforter hers to keep?
1. Drinking The Pain Away

AN: Hi everyone! Long time reader of HP fanfiction, first time writer. I just thought it'd be nice to spend some time with my favorite characters and share them with you too! Please leave a review and let me know what you think! Hoping to get another chapter up soon. 3 xoxo

Her tea was scalding, too hot to drink, but she gulped it down anyway. Her lips and tongue protested, she could feel the blisters inside her mouth forming already but she didn't care. She wished for more of this pain, she wished she could think about anything except the pain that was too big to feel, the pain of loss. Her thoughts were consumed with Ron. She thought about his ruddy face after Quidditch practice, his Chocolate Frog collection, the way he teased her about biting her quills when she was concentrating.

She also thought about how miserable he'd been in this tent with them the last several months, how the horcrux had made him jealous and testy, how thin he'd become and how his smile no longer met his eyes. The way they had forgiven each other and then the way he had stepped in the way to- no, she couldn't stand thinking about it. She wished that she could tell him he was stupid, he was brave, he was loved.

She felt the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes and willed them to stay put. She needed to stay strong so that she could help Harry. As hard as this was for her, she knew it was equally if not more difficult for him. He had carried the burdens of the world on his shoulders for so many years, he had always felt responsible for lives lost and casualties incurred. Ron had been the first friend he'd ever made-they'd both been her first true friends as well. She wished she could take back some of the cruel things she had said over the years.

Reluctantly, she turned her gaze toward the outline of Ron's body atop his cot. He was covered with a tattered sheet, stiff and cold. He might have been sleeping, except Hermione knew that he never slept so gracefully as that-usually there was also a telltale snore. She willed him to roll over, mutter something about the Chudley Cannons or passing the treacle tart, but instead there was only silence.

"Hermione," she heard from behind her. She twisted around to see Harry standing holding open the tent flap expectantly, pointedly ignoring Ron's cot. His eyes were averted to the damp, dirty canvas beneath their feet. She understood how he felt. Maybe if they didn't look at the body, it would mean it wasn't true. She could tell he was fighting tears back just as she was. He was fighting tears too.

"Yes, Harry?" she murmured, doing her best to keep her voice from quavering.

"I've thought about it and… there's really no better option. We can't take him to the Burrow and we can't take him with us anywhere else. I think… I think we need to bury him here. Maybe when all this is over…" the rest of his sentence hung in the air with defeat. The unspoken things lingered uncomfortably: would this ever be over? Would Dark triumph over Light? Would they even be alive to come back for Ron's body? Would his family understand? Would they blame her for what happened? Would she even be welcomed in the company of Weasleys when they learned what had happened?

She nodded, gulping down more of her tea and roughly placing the mug back on the table. "Okay, I'll help you."

Harry looked at the ground and turned to leave. "Harry, I'm sorry-" she began but was cut off with a sigh. Harry's eyes bored a hole in the ground, his arrested gaze intensifying the silence.

"Hermione, you have nothing to be sorry for. We always knew this could happen," he replied heavily. She heard the grief in his voice. She didn't think her heart could sink any lower but at this moment it felt like an invisible hand was squeezing her chest cavity, constricting her breath and her pulse.

"He loved you. I love you," he added, still staring at the ground. "And I know you love us," he said, his voice cracking. "We were always prepared to sacrifice-" the tears broke and he collapsed into Hermione's arms as she gathered him to her in a fierce and primal embrace. The tears she had been fighting cascaded from her eyes and she heard a wailing in her ears. She realized the wailing noise was coming from her mouth, not Harry's, deep from inside, seemingly without end. She clung to Harry, both kneeling in the cold earth, weeping for the friend they had lost.

_*Three years later*_

Every year they gathered to remember him and every year she struggled through the day, week, month of his death. The survivor's guilt made her throat feel closed and her head feel heavy on her shoulders. Molly and Arthur and Ginny and Ron's remaining brothers didn't hate her for what happened, and they didn't blame her. They were proud of him, he'd been a true Gryffindor until the very end. Still. She blamed herself. She should have been braver when the time came. The cognitive dissonance sometimes felt like she was being ripped apart-she knew Ron wouldn't want her to feel guilty, and yet she felt as though she wore a scarlet letter on her chest everywhere she went.

They'd spent the evening sharing all their fondest memories of Ron. She cherished the not so fond memories as well. She had loved her friend for his good qualities and his bad qualities alike, she kept these to herself though when gathered with his family. She somehow felt they wouldn't appreciate her drudging up the memories of Ron's crassness or callous edges.

She'd apparated to London and ended up wandering the streets. Somehow, she'd found herself here, the curiosity drawing her inside like a magnetic force. The house was black as pitch when she arrived. It had to be after midnight by now, she honestly wasn't sure what time she had left the drapes were drawn, even light from the Muggle street lamps couldn't permeate the thick velvet covering the windows. "Lumos," she whispered, even though she knew she was alone. The floors were coated with dust, it smelled positively dank from human absence and care. She felt eerie, like someone was watching her. She didn't enjoy the company of ghosts.

She carefully tread the hallway, deftly avoiding the floorboards she remembered had a tendency to creak. She slowly cracked the kitchen door and entered the old familiar gathering place. The stove had a cold kettle atop it, it had been years since it had been warmed for the comfort of family and friends. The chairs were tucked under the table, some askew from their last use. Was it really that long since they had all gathered here in this house to hide and plot the demise of the Dark Lord?

Hermione spotted a few candles on the sideboard and lit them with her wand tip. Next she pointed her wand to the fire grate. "Incendio," she muttered, comforted by the blaze that cast warm shadows across the room. The fire also illuminated a crystal decanter in the corner of the room. It was filled with an amber liquid that Hermione was sure was firewhisky. _Perfect, _she thought to herself. She wiped the inside of a crystal whisky glass clean with the hem of her shirt and removed the pewter stopper in the top. The Black family crest and House words were engraved on it, she examined a small stone set in the center of the crest and decided it was likely an opal. She carefully sniffed the contents, and released a spluttering cough induced by the sting of alcohol in her nostrils. She poured a small amount into the glass, regarding it for a moment before tipping the decanter again and filling the glass more generously. She took in a deep breath and chugged a large sip of it before choking and setting it down on the table, leaning against it for support while she recovered.

"Aquamenti," she choked, filling a cup from the butler's pantry and chased the burn of the firewhisky. After a few minutes she felt she had adequately recovered and returned to moderate sipping of the liquor she had poured. She was not a frequent drinker, the whisky quickly went to her head and made her body float and her brain fuzzy. She couldn't believe it had been three years since Voldemort's defeat and three years since she had lost her best friend.

She often wondered if Ron could have been more than a best friend, if he had survived would they have fallen in love? Sometimes she had felt the spark between them, the "more" that surpassed simple friendship and drew them together. He was her opposite in so many ways, he was infuriating and stubborn and petty. But he was loyal and funny and- she couldn't keep thinking about the what-ifs, it would make her crazy. She wondered if she was going to cry, but no tears came. She had cried more tears than any person her age should be allotted already, there weren't any left for her dive into the bottle. It was easier to get lost in the lost possibilities of their never romance when there had been no room for courtship or other men in her life since the war.

Why had she come here? She wasn't entirely sure. This place had become a kind of home to her though, even when times were difficult this was somewhat of a happy place. Now it was like a walk-in casket, a place that once was inhabited by warm living bodies that no longer walked the earth. It was morbid, it was sacred, it was bittersweet. God, this place was swimming in memories.

Throwing back the remainder of her firewhisky, she stood up and walked up the back staircase, clutching the rail for support. She no longer bothered with being quiet anymore, if the ghosts she sensed were offended by the intrusion they could lodge a complaint personally. She opened the first bedroom door she came across, illuminating it with her wand when she entered.

Oh. Sirius' room. She rolled her eyes at the naked women he'd decorated the walls with and looked at the inviting four poster bed. It was unmade, untouched since the last time Sirius had slept in it. Sober Hermione would have minded very much that these sheets had not been cleaned properly in over five years. Drunk Hermione rationalized that she had lived in a tent for a year and this is exactly what magic was for anyway. She cast a few charms over the bed and crawled in-it smelled like fresh lilacs now. She kicked off her shoes and peeled off her jeans, discarding them on the floor. She pulled the covers on top of her and nodded off, willing herself not to dream.


	2. Dreaming of You

**AN: Helloooooo! I don't know if I'll be able to keep up the pace of one new chapter a day, but I'm on a roll so I thought I'd upload another chapter. Looking forward to your comments, please review and let me know what you think! 3 xoxo**

_Hermione did dream. It felt a little bit like she was looking at the world through thick glass, images were distorted like she was watching them from a distance. She was in a peaceful wood, on the outskirts she reckoned by the thinness of the trees and the smattering of light peeking through the foliage above. It was autumn, the vibrant leaves under her feet crunched satisfactorily as she walked along a path to a clearing. She saw a man sitting on a large rock huddled over a fire, his dark hair covering his eyes as he fiddled with something across his lap. Hermione felt warmth as she looked at him, she was aware of the smile that played across her lips as she continued to approach him._

_"Well, hi there," she called to him. He turned to face her, a large grin on his mischievous face. "You're back quite soon, love," he remarked to her._

_ "What can I say? I suppose I missed you a bit," she teased, taking a seat next to him on the large stone. His face was so handsome, his hands were strong and beautiful at the same time. He extended a stick to her capped with two marshmallows on the end. Their fingertips brushed, and she felt a pleasant tightening in her chest. Being this close to him was intoxicating. She held the stick over the fire, taking pleasure in the way the marshmallow skins slowly became golden. She smirked when her companion thrust his marshmallows in the fire clearly hoping to set them ablaze._

_"Do you really like them burnt like that?" she asked, throwing him an amused glance that he returned easily. _

_"Of course. You know me, I don't do things in halves. I'm all in." She felt her breath hitch as she interpreted the double meaning layered in his reply._

_ He clearly enjoyed the tension he was building between them. His marshmallow caught fire and he brought it closer to his face to savor the rush of the blaze. After several seconds of burning, the outside of the marshmallow growing charred and brown, he made eye contact with her and blew on it, forcefully extinguishing the fire. The heat between them crackled. After allowing it to cool, he bit the marshmallow off the stick whole, relishing her enamored demeanor as she watched him devour it._

_She leaned close to him, raising her hand to the corner of his mouth. Gently she brushed her thumb across his bottom lip and the crease between them her eyes were cast downward, shyly, gazing at his lips. He reached for her chin and tilted her face upwards. Her long dark lashes fluttered, brown eyes meeting grey. _

_"You've got something on your face," she murmured cheekily, her thumb still resting on the corner of his mouth. He wrapped his hand around her wrist and she let out a sigh._

_"Love, I-" she cut him off by gently replacing her thumb with her lips, kissing him tentatively. She felt him go stiff, and she made a motion to retreat. _This was a mistake. I've ruined it, _she thought. He surprised her by tugging her wrist toward him and using his other hand to pull her waist close, responding to her kiss firmly. She could feel the heat of his mouth warming her from her toes to the top of her head. Every nerve was tingling through her as he deepened the kiss, their open mouths responding to each other and the long-standing tension they had developed. They broke apart and she rested her forehead against his, cupping his face with her palms. _

_"Oh, Sirius," she breathed._

* * *

Hermione jolted awake. Her stomach did several backflips as if she'd been falling down a blackhole and suddenly hit the bottom. Her headache was murderous, she clearly had not had enough water to counteract the effects of the butterbeer she drank at the Burrow or the firewhisky she had quelled her grief with the night before. She opened her eyes and remembered where she was, blushing as she remembered the dream that had awoken her. She spiraled deeper into her shame as she noted that she wasn't wearing jeans _while lying in the bed of Sirius Black_.

She had recognized the man in her dreams as Sirius even though he looked nothing like the Sirius she had known in life. The man in her dreams had shoulder length, thick, wavy, gorgeous hair. His face was bright and mischievous, no lines from years of stress and incarceration. The undone buttons of his shirt revealed a soft smattering of curly hair and the edges of a tattoo. The Sirius she had known was covered in faded tattoos, his hair was long but had lost it's fullness and shine, and while a gleam of mischief could be found in his eyes from time to time, he had always seemed tired when he thought no one else was looking. She brushed her hand over her panties and was embarrassed to discover she was wet. This was the strangest possible variation of grief she had experienced-a wet dream about a dead man old enough to be her father.

She looked at the clock on the side table and noted it was about ten o'clock in the morning. She flopped back on the bed and sighed. It was Saturday so she didn't have to go to work. She'd left Harry and Ginny and the rest of the Weasley family last night at the Burrow so none of them would be expecting to see her today, and no one would think to look for her here even if they happened to be looking. She wondered how long she could get away with hiding out at Grimmauld Place with her sad memories before the world demanded that she smile again.

She took a more careful look around the room than she had the night before. The morning light softened the decor invoking nostalgia. The Muggle posters of naked women still made her feel a certain distaste, though she supposed that could be excused somewhat as it was partially a statement of spite against his insufferable blood puritanical family. He had clearly done his best to make the room a statement against everything his family had stood for. She smiled a bit in appreciation of his pluck for standing against deep seated evil. She couldn't imagine what growing up in his house must have felt like. How did you escape a nest of snakes?

Her gaze landed on an open crate next to the bureau and she craned her head to get a better look. It looked like something that had been stored in an attic for an extended period of time. She couldn't see very well from her perch in the bed, so she swung her legs over the side and padded over to see what was inside.

Squatting so that she could take a better look at the container, she saw the crate was labeled with the words_: Remus J. Lupin_ and _Property Of: Sirius O. Black_ in faded ink. _I suppose Remus kept some of Sirius' things all those years he was in Azkaban, _she thought to herself. He must have returned these items to Sirius when he moved back to his childhood hellhole. She felt a pang of sadness thinking of Remus all alone for all of those years, unable to give up a box of memories that undoubtedly caused him pain and confusion in light of Sirius' supposed betrayal.

A maroon and gold Quidditch jersey was folded haphazardly in the top. She gingerly lifted it and turned it over to see BLACK and the number 7 emblazoned across the back. There were loose stitches and a few holes but the jersey was largely intact. It was strange to think of Sirius as a young student, aloft on a broom, playing sports while the world around him hurtled towards a precipice of darkness.

She picked up a photograph underneath and saw a man who looked startlingly like her best friend and a much younger version of her favorite Defense professor lounging by the Black Lake. _This is what the Sirius of her dream looked like, _she realized with confusion. She only knew a rugged, war-weathered man from her years in Hogwarts. This young, handsome, mischievous man was a stranger to her... or at least he should have been. How could she have imagined him like this in her dreams without ever having known him like this? She felt strangely protective over this version of the man she had barely known, unaware of the misery the future was to bring, how cheated he would be.

She briefly wondered what he would have been like if he had never been framed for mass murder and the betrayal of Harry's parents. If he would have gotten married, raised Harry, kept Remus in better shape. All of the years that should have been good to him were stolen-first by Azkaban and then by being in hiding. Sirius had been a wild spirit, that much she remembered well from their years of acquaintance. What a cruel twist of fate that he lived his life in a literal and then psychological cage. The tragedy of it was of Shakespearean proportions.

She sifted through other various photographs and letters in the box, N.E.W.T. results (he'd done surprisingly well), and other various school effects before stumbling upon a heavy pendant in the bottom of the box. She lifted it out carefully and stared it in puzzlement. This didn't seem like a school-age possession that Remus would have taken into custody for Sirius.

It was gold, untarnished (she assumed it was enchanted to dispel dirt and rust) and would hang a few inches above the navel if she guessed correctly. It was a large sapphire, cushion cut, at least 10 karats, with a halo of diamonds and emeralds. This seemed old, and full of magic, and hardly the taste in jewelry that Sirius had had, at least in the time she'd known him. She turned it over, searching for an engraving that might illuminate its purpose or origin or any darkness it contained. She found nothing. The longer she looked at it, the more she felt connected to the stone, almost as if it were putting her into a trance.

She wanted to put it on, but her experience with magical artifacts warned her against this. She was in a house that was previously infested with dark heirlooms likely spelled to cause harm to those who didn't fit a particular heritage profile, like herself. Her intuition nudged her away from this idea, and she forced herself to place it on the bureau instead. She rummaged about in the box more, pointedly ignoring the pendant, skimming a few letters between Sirius and his school friends, before the discomfort of the intrusion finally put an end to it. She neatly rearranged the box's contents before crossing the room to pick up her jeans and pull them on, followed by her shoes.

How was she going to spend the rest of the day, she did not know. Perhaps a cup of tea would give her time to mull it over and make a plan. She wasn't ready to face her well-meaning friends yet, or anyone in the magical world for that matter. She felt guilty for being so sad when the Weasley family had more cause to grieve over Ron's death anniversary than she. But she had been there, she was the one he had died protecting, she had buried his body. They would never have to live with those memories.

She rinsed her mouth and crept down the front stairs carefully, eager not to awaken Walburga Black from her portrait's silence. She slipped out the front door and walked a few blocks to find a cafe and some breakfast. Having successfully acquired a pastry and a large earl grey tea, she decided to return to Grimmauld Place and not her own flat. She hadn't taken advantage of the library at Grimmauld for quite a few years and she remembered it was full of rare and interesting books more likely to be found in the Hogwarts restricted section than a display at Flourish and Blotts.

A lazy day of reading was just what she needed.


	3. Can't Get Away

**AN: Sorry it's been a few days since my last update! I've been covering for all the people on my team for the past few weeks due to illnesses and I'm in the middle of exams right now. But I couldn't get Hermione and Sirius out of my head so here we are! I hope you enjoy, I'm trying to build up to the bigger reveal... stay tuned, more delicious smut and adventure to come!**

Hermione spent the entire afternoon lazily draped over a plush velvet sofa in the Black library perusing rare and historical volumes. She was reading a fascinating tome of lore of the sorceress Morgana and her rise to notoriety in Muggle literature. Questions of Morgana's magical orientation were mixed, whether she practiced Dark Magic was obscured by multiple and varying reports. There was a certain greyness to magic that Hermione had come to appreciate since the conclusion of the wizarding war she had lived through. Intentions mattered. Outcomes mattered. It was all too complex to be compartmentalized and judged uniformly.

She had thrown back the rich silk window coverings to allow the room to be illuminated by natural light while she savored the solitude her secret hideaway afforded. As the sun began to dip, the natural light gradually faded and Hermione began to drift into a comfortable sleep.

_Sirius was stroking her hair lazily; she was curled into his side, legs intertwined with his and her hand resting on his chest. She let out a contented sigh, relishing the feeling of his naked flesh against her own. "What are you thinking about, love?" he murmured into her ear, his breath tickling her neck, raising goosebumps on her arms._

_"Mmm," she purred contentedly. _

_He chuckled, "Didn't quite catch that." _

_She nestled her head further into his neck and sighed. "Just about how happy I am right now, here with you." He dropped a kiss on her temple._

_ "I was thinking the same thing." She smiled up at him, her adoring gaze igniting a protective feeling in his chest. _

_"I might also have been thinking about your arse," he intimated teasingly. She swatted him on his chest and propped herself on her elbow to give him a playful look of outrage. _

_"Oh, were you now?" she said, arching her eyebrow expectantly._

_"Well, love…" he started, pausing as if considering it deeply, "I might always be thinking about your arse." _

_She threw her head back and laughed, then captured his lips with her own. "I suppose that's a forgivable offense considering it really is one hell of an arse," she retorted, cheeks coloring at her own boldness. _

_"Can I tell you a secret?" he asks, smile still quirking on his lips. She nods. "You're so sexy when you talk about yourself like that," he whispers in her ear, giving her goosebumps. She nestled into his arms grinning widely, feeling giddy from his affirmation, the confidence he brought out in her._

_"I'm going to go get you some tea and toast you sexy witch, and when I get back I'm going to eat _you_ for breakfast," he growled in her ear. _

_She felt heat ignite in her abdomen and between her thighs. She knew that _he knew_ the effect he was having on her. He nipped her ear, trailing kisses down her neck, and shoulder and collarbone, finally pressing his lips above the swell of her breast before leaping out of bed and sauntering out of the room entirely nude. She watched him go with lust trickling through her like someone had cracked an egg on the top of her head. Lord, he was going to be trouble._

* * *

Hermione snapped awake, disoriented and disturbed by the contents of her second sultry dream with Harry's godfather. The room was almost pitch black since the sun had fallen, only some light from the street illuminated the book that lay slack across her chest. "Lumos." She carefully placed the volume on an end table and sat up, clutching the side of her head with disbelief. She could feel her wetness in her panties again, she felt betrayed by her own dreams, conjuring illicit and previously unfathomable scenes in her head.

It was the house, she decided. Her mind was playing tricks on her, she had returned to a place clearly embodied by the memory of a dead man, and her subconscious was filling in absurd situations because of her elevated and confused emotional state. The simple solution was obvious: leave the house. She exited the library with resolve, quietly crept down the stairs, out the door, and apparated to her flat. She realized she didn't even know the time. The clock above her mantle showed it to be half past seven. She oddly wasn't hungry, though, so she decided to take a shower.

It felt good to stand under the hot water, hotter than she could stand, steam rising off her skin. She sometimes took showers like she was accepting some kind of punishment, especially when she was missing Ron. She used them to atone, to distract, to deflect the pain that lived in her chest to some part of her she could control. A part of her knew that Ron wouldn't want this, he would be hurt that she did this to herself to deal with the pain of his loss, but she didn't know how to stop. She wondered if the guilt she felt would ever soften, let her live her life in peace. Images flashed through her mind.

_"HERMIONE!" she heard him scream her name, her heart was racing in her chest as she found herself cornered, disarmed._ Hermione squeezed her eyes shut.

_"Ron, please wake up, please please wake up," she sobbed, cradling his head in her lap, willing his eyes to open._ She dipped her face under the scalding water, focusing on the way it made her skin burn.

_Harry hovering over them, shocked, wand at his side, two Snatchers lay dead behind him._ Hermione sat down in the tub clutching the sides as the humidity became too much to bear. She started to feel light-headed, quickly turning off the tap and collapsing against the side. Hot tears commingled with the drops of hot water running down her cheeks. She looked at her breasts and arms and stomach and was fascinated with the the terrible redness of her skin. She needed to stop. This wasn't doing her any good. It wouldn't do Ron any good either, dead as he was in his grave.

She thought of the white lilies she had laid on his headstone just the day before. They had magically marked the place where they had laid Ron to rest on their horcrux hunt, and they had returned for his corpse when the final battle had been won. Mrs. Weasley had been so grateful to have the opportunity to mourn him properly, alongside Fred, whom he was buried next to. It seemed so wrong. Fred should be buried next to George after living to an old age, and a wife that he should have had, and mourned by his many children. Ron should have started a career, maybe settled down, lived so many more years than he did. It was hard to conceive of a future when so many no longer had one.

Ron's grave still didn't seem real to her, even when she was kneeling atop the earth that covered his remains, she could still picture his icy blue eyes as though it were just yesterday that she had gazed upon them. The flowers she laid there seemed perfunctory, expected. Sometimes when something made her laugh, she thought, "I can't wait to tell Ron." Then she would remember that she wouldn't see him at his mother's table, she couldn't send him an owl, he was just gone and there was a hole left now.

She watched her skin fade to pink then back to porcelain. When she felt recovered enough she stood and wrapped herself in a threadbare yellow towel that she'd kept since her mom had packed her trunk for Hogwarts. She padded into the kitchen and filled a glass of water from the tap.

Grimmauld Place intruded on her thoughts; so did its final occupant who had been spending an inordinate amount of time in her dreams. She had spent almost an entire 24 hours there on a whim. She felt uncomfortable now that she had returned there, stirring her already delicate emotional state into overdrive. That place was a war room, a fortress for soldiers and strategists, where certain inhabitants were also prisoners. It was not an emotional safe haven or hideout. The compulsion to visit made no logical sense, though she reasoned she has not been in her most logical state when she ended up there.

The Sirius of her dreams was swimming in her mind's eye, younger than the Sirius she had known in his life, unscarred and vibrant. His hair was silky, his eyes full of merriment, his hands smooth and without prison markings. She had been with this Sirius in the forest in her dream before she looked at his old photographs—it was odd that he should visit her in that state without prior encounters of his youthful visage.

The more she considered the Sirius of her dream the more her thoughts were drawn to the pendant she had found. She felt an irritation in her brain, like an itch she couldn't scratch, developing. Was she drawn to it because of its beauty or because it was enchanted to draw the interest of the admirer? She deliberately tried to divert her thoughts but found the more she avoided thinking of the pendant, the more prominent it grew in her thoughts. She began to feel panicked, she opened the cabinet where she kept her remedies and uncorked a calming draught. Taking two decent pulls from the bottle, she felt her mind settle and she was relieved when she discovered she could concentrate on other subjects than the necklace. If she wasn't sure before, she was now: there was something up with the pendant she had found in Sirius' room, and she was fairly certain it couldn't be good.


	4. Haunted

**AN: Welcome back! Guys, what is going on with this necklace? Is anyone worried about Hermione? Well, don't be because we all know that woman can definitely handle herself! So excited about this update for y'all, I know it's a bit short, but we're starting to get somewhere, I can't wait to hear your thoughts! Please leave a review and let me know what you think! Xoxo**

After she had put on her pajamas, made her evening cup of tea, and attempted to read herself to sleep she still found herself plagued by thoughts of the necklace. It reminded her of a craving for chocolate or the nagging need to play a certain song on repeat, it was a nuisance she could not override with simple willpower. After she turned off her lamp and still could not drive the thought of the pendant from her brain, she fumbled for the bottle of sleep elixir on her nightstand she kept there for emergencies. Taking a liberal swig, she replaced it on the table and rolled over waiting for sleep to claim her.

* * *

_Sirius was perched between her thighs, his hands resting gently on her hips, as if ready to bend her to his will at any moment. He was grinning at her like the cat that caught the canary. His eyes were locked on her own— they were unyielding, penetrating into a place deep inside her and stirring great feeling. He was teasing her with his silence, with his pauses, as much as he had teased her with his tongue and the ministrations of his hands. She broke—a sigh escaped from her mouth. He raised his eyebrows in acceptance of her surrender. _

_He grazed his hand over her thigh; she flinched with anticipation. He bent over her prone body to trail kisses down her neck, gently nipping her soft fair skin along the way. His hair grazed her chest, lightly tickling her breasts as he worked his way downward. He could feel her pulse quicken as he worked his tongue in circles around her nipples, taking them between his teeth and biting firmly, eliciting a moan of pleasure. He skimmed her figure with his hands, exploring the soft plane of her body over the sides of her full breasts, her rib cage, her waist and her hips. Grasping them again he journeyed further south with his lips leaving kisses on her stomach, below her navel and her pelvic bone. She arched her back, a plea for release. He kissed the inside of her thighs, relishing the soft moans she was making. Using the broad side of his tongue he licked the soft inside of her leg, simultaneously running his hands down her calves. _

_She rolled her hips towards him anticipating the next place his tongue would tease. Finally, he kissed her exactly where she wanted. He lightly sucked the peak of her mound causing her to cry out. Skillfully he circled it with the tip of his tongue, applying pressure to the surrounding areas, torturing her sweetly as her arousal built. She was glistening with it, hot, wet and ready. Without removing his mouth he began to lightly stroke her entrance, sliding first one finger inside and then a second. One of her hands was clutching the sheet beneath her, the other was tangled in his dark hair. _

_"Sirius..." she whimpered, her voice trembling with abandon. _

_She was on the brink of losing control, the tremors of her impending release were emanating from her core all the way to her outer limbs. Her face was flushed, eyes fluttering, lips parted. He curled his fingers inside of her, rhythmically pulsing the sweet spot inside. She cried out as she came, her legs trembling uncontrollably as he let her down from the high he had built._

_ As her body relaxed, he kissed her on her stomach, then postured himself beside her, drawing her to him, cradling her head under his neck. Her ragged breathing steadied and she kissed his shoulder, basking in the glow of her pleasure. _

_"What about you?" she asked him softly. _

_"Oh, don't worry about me, love. There's plenty for me in round two," he replied. _

_She could hear the devilish smile in his voice. _Oh, god, _she thought. _Round two. I might fall apart. _Then again, maybe she didn't mind. She glanced at the side table and saw the pendant was right there where she had left it, it's bright stone winking at her in the lamplight._

* * *

Hermione woke once again with a start. She never dreamt this vividly, this often, and definitely not this... luridly. She was unsure of what disturbed her most about the dream she had just had: that it was the third of its kind in two days, that the pendant had made an appearance, or that she had very thoroughly enjoyed being devoured by Sirius Black.

Her sheets were damp with sweat, crumpled around her knees where she had apparently thrown them off. Her fingers were sticky... oh god, had she been touching herself in her sleep? A quick check confirmed her suspicion. This was absolutely out of control.

There was something wrong with her and she could tell magic was involved one way or another. The pendant was creeping back into her mind like an obsession that did not originate there. She looked at the clock. It was 8 o'clock. Her rational mind was trying to cut through the insistent need of the pendant in her thoughts, and that part of her mind told her seeking out the pendant was a bad, bad idea. However, she also knew that her ability to resist this compulsion was limited and that at some point she was going to have to seek out the pendant to work out a way of disentangling it from her mind.

Arriving at a decision, she dressed with resolve. If anyone could confront and resist this pendant it would be her. She just had to be in the same room with it if she was going to study it and break its enchantment over her. Once she had clothed herself in jeans and a green short sleeve tee, she splashed water on her face, brushed her teeth and grabbed her bag. Taking in a deep breath, she closed her eyes and apparated to the front porch of Grimmauld. There were birds nestled in the topiaries on the stoop, chirping softly, enjoying the sunshine. The outside world was entirely indifferent to the current complexities of her inner world.

She opened the front door and found the house as she had left it-dusty, dim, and dingy. She quietly closed the door behind her, and ascended the stairs resolutely. She walked to Sirius's room with purpose, lit a lamp, and walked to stand in front of the bureau. The necklace was exactly how she had left it. Now that she was standing in front of it, she felt oddly calm. She couldn't explain it, there was nothing else for her to do, the only course of action that she could think of was to lift the pendant to her neck and put it on.

Her hands cooperated with the urges of her mind; she picked up the pendant and slipped it on, the sapphire stone laying just below her breastbone. The moment it encircled her neck, the magical insistence of her body to put the jewelry on stopped. Her mind was suddenly clear and calm. She lifted the stone up to look at it, noticing it's exceptional brilliance. She stared at the stone, and felt it surge with power. Before she knew what was happening, her eyes fluttered shut like shutters in a storm. She could feel the energy of the room shifting and then the world went blank.


	5. Confunded

**AN: Okay, I SUCK big time I know for leaving this story where it was awhile back, but honestly between work stress, school stress, and life stress I was not able to continue this story the way that I wanted to at the time I began writing it. Now I'm done with grad school, work has settled down, and I'm getting my personal shit together (shout out to my therapist and a reminder to all of you to seek out mental health resources when you need them!) so I can pick up where I left off. I've gone through the previous four chapters and added some new stuff if you want to read again to refresh yourself! I'll feel out how often I can regularly get a chapter out and let y'all know the update schedule. Can't wait to dive back in and hear your thoughts! Sorry in advance for the extensive dialogue. **

Hermione knew what the inside of a dream felt like. She felt somewhere between waking and dreaming in her current state, but the longer she remained in the dream the more real it felt, until she suddenly could no longer tell the difference. Her vision sharpened, the feeling of the ground under her back, head, legs became visceral. Taking in her surroundings, she noticed she was in a comfortable den. The windows had grand, dated draperies, a bookshelf leaned against the far wall and a few picture frames were arranged intermittently around the room, their inhabitants currently sleeping. There was an old, crushed velvet clawed-foot sofa and a fire in the grate and a worn carpet beneath her. Slowly, head still rushing, she sat up and swept her hands over the rug. It was soft to the touch. Wherever she was, it had to be real... didn't it?

Tentatively she picked herself up off of the ground. Gripping the back of the sofa she steadied herself and stood upright. She gasped when she looked down and saw a sleeping figure lying on the couch. Her audible surprise at finding herself not alone must have awakened her companion because his eyes opened, and widened, at the sight of her. Still groggy, he scrambled into a defensive seated position and blurted, "Who the fuck are you?"

Taking several alarmed steps back, Hermione opened and closed her mouth like a fish. "I... uh..." she was struggling to put the words together. She took another step back and felt something sharp and acutely painful underfoot. "Ahh!" She crumpled to the ground, continuing to scramble away from the stranger. He had sprung to his feet in shock and took stock of the woman that had intruded on his slumber.

As she composed herself, she became aware that he was evaluating her. She, on the other hand, did not need to size him up to know who he was; young Sirius Black was standing across the room from her. What… the bloody hell… was going on?!

"Sirius?" she asked tentatively.

"You know my name?" he replied in confusion.

"Yeah, I do… I mean, I know you. Knew you. Will know you? I'm sorry, I don't really understand what's happening right now." She picked herself up off the floor again, keeping some distance between herself and young Sirius.

"Do you get to know the names of all the people whose houses you break into or just mine?" he queried.

"Break in? I woke up on your floor!" she answered incredulously.

"If I might, I suggest coming up with a better excuse next time you get caught burgling? That one falls a little flat, if honest feedback is welcomed," he shot back. He maintained the perturbed façade well enough, but Hermione had just enough knowledge of the man to know when he was secretly amused with himself.

"It's not an excuse," she huffed. "Besides, do you really believe that just anyone could break in to this house? It's Unplottable and covered in Notice-me-Not charms, it would hardly be easy for a random burglar to enter," she reasoned with him.

"Okay, so you're smarter than the average burglar," he quipped.

"If I happened to be a burglar, yes, I think it's fair to say I would be," she retorted. "I've been at 12 Grimmauld Place countless times but I don't remember this room…" she trailed off while glancing around the room in question.

"You've been to my house before?" Sirius was beginning to genuinely wonder what the hell was going on.

"Yes, I—well, the Order was using it as a headquarters—"

"The Order of the Phoenix?!" he cut her off. "The Order of the Phoenix is using this house as a headquarters? Are you pulling my leg?" he demanded. Hermione didn't know what to say, she just continued to stare at him wide eyed while she searched for the words.

"The Order is—was—using the house as a headquarters, but not while you were a member. Well, not the _first _time you were a member—after Voldemort returned—"

"What do you mean returned? Do you mean he was defeated? But that he somehow regains power—" Sirius interrupted.

"Yes and yes," Hermione sighed, exasperated with the directions the conversation was taking. She felt like she'd just been released from a Full Body-Bind Curse _and _a Confundus Charm and had not yet gained her bearings enough to explain herself in an organized fashion. She hardly knew what was happening herself without trying to explain it to someone else.

"What, did you take a spin with a Time Turner or something? Here I was just thinking you broke into my house while I was sleeping," he asked.

"No, I mean, I have used a Time Turner before but they're all destroyed now. I'm—I'm honestly not sure if this is even real, is this another dream? Have I travelled in time? Where—where exactly am I?" she rambled, talking to herself more than to Sirius. He looked bewildered at her unusual explanation.

"It's a long, long story," Hermione said finally. She paused, then took a tentative step towards him. They were now standing close to one another on opposite sides of the sofa. They continued to hold eye contact, waiting for the other to speak first. Finally, he broke the silence. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Hermione. Granger," she added as an afterthought.

"So muggleborn then, or at least half blood," he mused.

"Yes, I'm a muggleborn, no need to be rude about it," she replied, caught off guard by young Sirius' mention of blood status. She had never known him to be prejudiced, just the opposite in fact.

"No, that's not what I meant," he blushed, realizing how he must have sounded. "I just meant, your family name isn't familiar to me. I'm from an uptight blood supremacist family so I know all the old names. I don't have any reference for you," he explained quickly. She raised an eyebrow at him, walked around the sofa and took a seat. He followed suit.

"Good to know you still diverge from your family in that respect," she remarked, brow still pointedly arched.

"You know my family?"

"God, no!" she exclaimed. "Thank Merlin I don't. More like, I know about them. By reputation. Bad reputation of course."

"I commend your good taste and wish I could say the same," he remarked cheekily, reclining on the couch and crossing his ankle over his knee in an instinctively cocky posture. He certainly possessed the natural masculine charisma of a handsome, wellborn, wealthy man. She blushed as she remembered the things they had done together in her dreams. Now that they were in such close, comfortable proximity, it was difficult to meet his eye without imagining the things he had done to her, the places he had kissed… she snapped herself out of it before she lost her composure.

After several moments before he asked, "Okay, Hermione the muggleborn. Tell me how you came to be here, in my sitting room."

How to begin? If she had traveled in time, she shouldn't be revealing secrets of the future carelessly, especially to a man as reckless as Sirius. She didn't know where in the timeline she had fallen. Were Lily and James in hiding? Had Peter been made secret keeper? Had Snape offered his services as a double agent yet?

"I think it might be better to know… what do you know?" she asked.

"What do _I _know?" he raised an eyebrow and pointed to his chest, a little taken aback. She perched on the edge of the sofa, her problem solving

"Listen, I don't have to explain to you, you're not stupid. Time is fragile. If I have somehow managed to travel to the past, completely by accident I might add, I could do great damage by sharing details of the future with you. I might _already _have done damage simply by telling you what I already have. Make sense?" she explained.

"Touché,"he remarked. He appeared to retreat into deeper thought. Finally, after a long silence he spoke.

"Okay. What do I know? That's honestly difficult to say. Truthfully, your appearance here is not the first abnormal thing to happen to me lately. In fact, your appearance is quite welcome all things considered, I've been in an unusual situation here for the last several months."

"What unusual situation?" she asked. He took a breath before answering.

"I would ask you to keep an open mind, but in light of your literal appearance out of thin air, I think you can handle it."

"Sirius, just tell me," she prompted flatly, ready to hear almost anything at this stage.

"So, before you arrived, I was… to the best of my knowledge… the last man on earth."


	6. Time Pocket

AN: Now that I've started writing for this story again I'm excited about it and feeling very inspired! Please drop a review if you like it, I can't wait to hear your feedback!

Hermione tried to take in the information Sirius had just given her. Was he trying to be funny or was there some truth to his situation?

"When you say the last man on earth…"

"I mean no one else is in this house, in this neighborhood, in London, anywhere else in the world I've looked. I tried paying a visit to Diagon Alley, but when I arrived at The Leaky Cauldron there was no one there," Sirius explained. "I haven't seen anyone at all. Not my family, not my friends, hell running into a Death Eater would almost be welcome at this point," he joked. She quirked an eyebrow at him, knowing he'd hardly be averse to meeting a Death Eater in a dark alley.

Hermione furrowed her brow and pondered this information. "How long has this been going on?" she asked. Sirius considered. "Honestly… I don't know. I don't even remember when it began, it almost feels like it has always been this way, except I know that it wasn't," he answered perplexed.

Hermione began to piece together the information she knew. The Sirius in front of her was only 19, the Sirius she had known was 38 or 39 when he died, he would be have been 41 or 42 if he were still alive. 12 Grimmauld Place had been abandoned as a headquarters and a residence shortly thereafter, with Harry and Hermione each acquiring their own flats after the war was over. A magical pendant had been hiding in plain sight that somehow connected her to young Sirius, first through dreams and then through… whatever this was. Had she travelled in time? Or was she in some type of magical alternate dimension?

Thinking logically, Sirius had a historical timeline of his life. He clearly knew his identity, relationships with people in the world, and had memories of his life up until this point—whatever one might call this point. His solitary existence in the world, combined with his lack of awareness of his position in time or the passage of it, indicated something else was going on here. Hermione suddenly wasn't so sure that she had travelled in time when she put on the pendant—she suddenly had a hunch she may have travelled in _space._

"Sirius—I think I have an idea of what might be going on," she finally said after at least a minute of ruminating on the situation. She gave him a hard look, knowing that no matter how she revealed her theory, difficult information would have to be shared. "Can we start with some word association before I go further?" she asked tentatively. She needed to understand where his memories stopped so she could evaluate how to present the facts.

"Sure?" he answered, clearly not confident in her ability to explain the situation.

"Harry," she began.

"Uh, godson?" he answered. Okay, she had now established that Harry had been born in his timeline of memories. He'd already confirmed in their previous conversation that he did not know about Voldemort's initial defeat. That meant that Lily and James were still alive in his timeline of events.

"Peter," she tried next.

"Good mate," he replied readily.

"Dumbledore."

"Bad at wizard's chess," he answered cheekily. She rolled her eyes, earning a grin from him.

"Remus," she put forth, wondering if Sirius was aware of his friend's activities as a double agent or if there were tensions with the necessary distance Remus needed to create to carry out his missions.

"Best mate," he responded, though she sensed an amount of trouble from him.

"Okay, I have enough to go off of." He stared at her intently, waiting for her to explain what the hell was going on.

"I don't think that I've time traveled to be here with you, Sirius," she began. "I do know you from a point in your timeline that would technically be considered your future, but I don't think that I've traveled along a time continuum, I believe I've accidentally reached you through space." She watched his face nervously, awaiting his reaction to this news.

"What does that mean… exactly?" he questioned slowly. She could see worry play across his face, mixed with an amount of skepticism.

"I met you when I was 13 years old," she continued. "You would have been… 36 or 37 at the time of our meeting. You're my best friend's godfather," she explained. "Harry's godfather," she emphasized, so that he understood their connection. His face was unreadable, she could tell he was absorbing the information she had just imparted. Understandably this would take some time for him to fully process.

"When I was 14 years old, Voldemort returned to power—"

"You're not afraid to say his name?" Sirius interrupted her, curiosity piqued.

"A wise man who is reportedly bad at wizard's chess once said that fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself," she replied giving him a soft smile. He returned it with a twitch of his mouth, clearly still taking it all in.

"Right. Voldemort returned to power after having been incapacitated for a decade. His powers and life force had been so weakened that almost every wizard alive believed him to be dead, even his followers. When he returned to power, no one at the Ministry or society at large believed it for over a year. Anyone that did believe was subject to a massive smear campaign, bullied by other students and even some teachers. I believed in his return because… because Harry was present the night of his bodily resurrection." She paused to allow the information to digest. Sirius adjusted his posture, agitated, eyes alight with anger.

"My godson—my Harry—he was?" he struggled to articulate the words. "Was he—is he okay?"

"Yes, yes! Harry is alive and well. More than well now, he's training to join the force as an auror, he's part of a recreational Quidditch club—he was the youngest Seeker in a century for Gryffindor, you'd be so proud, you are so proud—he has a great girlfriend. Harry's brilliant," she reassured him. His intensity waned, she saw his shoulders visibly relax, her words had set his mind at ease.

"It's… it's so strange to hear all this. I know that Harry will grow up, he won't always be a baby, but knowing about it for certain is… it's a lot," he marveled. She smiled, his love for Harry was so strong and pure, she wished that he'd been able to be the father figure he should have been all the years he was locked away.

"What I don't understand," Sirius queried, "is Voldemort returns, yeah? But that means he is defeated. What happened? How does a wizard, even one as powerful and dark as that wanker, return from the dead? Assuming he was killed and not captured, yeah?" This is the first of many questions that Hermione dreaded answering. As soon as she mentioned that James and Lily were dead, he was going to respond in a very strong fashion. Any mention of Peter's betrayal would also set him off. His attempted murder of Peter and subsequent incarceration would also certainly press his buttons. How did she explain the events that transpired without all of this?

"Well, dark magic was involved, obviously," she answered. Well, that was a truthful and relatively neutral start at least.

"Voldemort concealed parts of his soul in magical relics as part of his backup plan for immortality. Six different artifacts to be exact."

"Horcruxes? That son of a bitch," Sirius muttered to himself.

"Exactly. No one, not even his inner circle, was aware of the existence of these Horcruxes. Over time, Dumbledore started to wonder of course, when Voldemort made quasi appearances at Hogwarts during mine and Harry's first and second years," Hermione explained. Omitting Ron's name from their friend group made her heart twinge with guilt, but she didn't want to make the events even more confusing for young Sirius to understand.

"Harry and I didn't have a seventh year at Hogwarts. We spent the year on a quest to find and destroy all of the Horcruxes, making Voldemort mortal and vulnerable to defeat once and for all. We were aided of course, by certain members of the Order and eventually were successful in our mission. Voldemort was defeated, he was killed by a killing curse he cast with his own wand, deflected off of a disarming spell. A poetic end, I think," she mused. His initial and obvious sentiment of skepticism had faded away, he considered the information she had given him seriously.

"This is all very interesting, and I have more questions. I want to go back to your theory about time travel though. Everything you've told me sounds as though you're a visitor from the future, I don't necessarily see why you don't believe that to be the case," he reasoned. She took a deep breath. She didn't like where the conversation was headed, though she supposed she either had to tell him the truth eventually or lie to him altogether.

"It's true, I know an older version of you—" she began.

"Am I still good looking in the future?" he interrupted, catching her off guard. She blushed.

"As I was still an underage witch when we met, I'll refrain from answering that," she retorted.

"So I was, understood love, thanks," he winked at her, devilish smile on his face. She felt the heat she'd only known in her dreams fill her stomach, he was so handsome right now in the firelight, she was having a lot of trouble not touching him in a casual, affectionate manner. In her dreams they had been so comfortable with each other, what if she slipped up? She interlaced her fingers on her lap in a deliberate effort to prevent this from happening in the immediate future.

"Anyway," Hermione cleared her throat. "I know an older version of you, and that version of you has lived through this timeline of events. But think about the inconsistencies. I have not stumbled through the past to find you at a point of your personal history that I'm familiar with. In fact, I seem to have found you outside the stream of time altogether. There's no one else besides yourself; the passage of time is nonexistent," she elucidated rapidly. He just raised his eyebrows at her in a way that either communicated that he was impressed with her theorizing or the exact opposite.

"It seems much more likely to me that you're trapped in a time pocket, as a 19 year old version of yourself, isolated from the movement of time and future events that will transpire and the actors that perpetuate those events," she repeated gently, hoping to elicit an answer from him.

"Okay, say that I believe you, which I'm tempted to do because I don't understand half the shit you just said," he leaned close to her, scrutinizing her with his eyes. She felt tingly from her scalp to her toes under the intensity of his gaze. "How, why, would that have happened? What could have possibly have caused that sort of thing to happen?"

These were the questions Hermione was less sure about, though a theory had already begun to form in the back of her brain. He wasn't going to like the answer, perhaps it was the most disturbing information she could reveal to him at this stage. What was her moral obligation here? To be honest, or to protect him from the truth?

"Well, I think some part of it is connected to an extremely ostentatious piece of jewelry I found in your house," she began. "An enormous sapphire pendant." He mulled this over.

"I might know what you're talking about, no one has seen that piece in some time though. My father paid a fortune for a necklace like the one you've described from Borgin & Burkes when I was just a boy, it was rumored to have belonged to Morgana herself. As far as I could guess though, it's been secreted away with the rest of the hoard of Black family priceless treasures in our Gringotts vault."

"Well… I found it in a box with your name on it. And putting it on is what caused me to wake up here, with you. I don't know why or how but that pendant is connected to this... this time pocket you're trapped in. And I suppose I'm now trapped in too…" she trailed off.

"Don't you know better than to touch anything in my house?" he asked incredulously.

"It was bewitched, obviously! As soon as I laid eyes on it I was fixated on wearing it. I resisted for an entire day, but the enchantment was very powerful," she replied defensively.

"What were you doing in my stuff anyway?" he asked.

"Let's not get off track," Hermione replied hurriedly, hoping to distract him from this line of questioning that could only lead to her embarrassment.

"If you say so," he answered, the twinkle in his eye making it clear that he did not intend to leave the subject alone forever.

"I don't want to have to tell you this, but I don't see any way around it," she confessed bluntly.

"Those certainly are words every man wants to hear, darling," he responded in a light tone, while reclining to brace himself for the bad news. Breathing in deeply, she decided to just tell him without any sugar coating or softening. He would respect it.

"Sirius," she hesitated. "You're dead."


	7. Whispers

AN: Hey guys! Another chapter! I'm hoping I can keep this pace of a new chapter each week, possibly more if I have the time and inspiration! Let me know what you think so far! Any predictions?

Hermione was more than aware she had just dropped a massive bomb on Sirius' brain. Not only had he been isolated from the typical time continuum for a literally unknowable length of time (to use the term loosely), surprised by the appearance of a strange witch, and told about the future—now he had learned that in that far away future, he was dead. He stared at her in blank shock for one, two, three, four, five seconds.

"Dead?" he answered flatly. She nodded her head slowly, lips pressed into a thin line. His brow was deeply furrowed, she could see the emotions play across his face as this sunk in. She wasn't sure how she would take the news of learning about her future death. Everyone knows that they are going to die. Most people do not have the option to know anything about that death decades in advance, which was probably for the best.

"How?" he demanded, voice low and eyes averted.

"I'm not sure I should—" she began.

"How?" he asked more firmly. She chewed her lower lip, conflicted. If she told him how he died, and he was somehow returned to a linear timeline, he could attempt to change things. In fact, all the information she had shared was exceptionally dangerous should that occur. Would she have to alter his memory? She was fairly skilled with memory charms, she didn't relish the ethics of them though. Perhaps he would consent to having the spell cast? The silence was penetrating though, she felt it squeezing her from all around.

"Harry was in danger," she explained finally. "It was Bellatrix, she came after him in the Ministry of Magic. He was lured there under false pretenses, he went to the Department of Ministries." She saw tears welling in his eyes. "He believed that Voldemort had captured you, that he was torturing you," the tears in her own eyes beginning to form. Talking about it brought back vivid memories, so much fear, chaos, uncertainty. There had been torture, grievous injury, and Sirius' death. So many more deaths would follow.

"You stepped in between them, to duel her instead. There wasn't—there was no body for us to bury. You kind of just… disappeared," she concluded. His brows knit together.

"Disappeared?"

"Well, Department of Mysteries and all that… there was an archway, it had a veil hanging from it. Bellatrix cursed you and you fell through it. There were.. it sounded like voices whispering. And you just faded…" she trailed off. "I don't think there was any pain, if that helps."

"But—" he stopped. "Harry was okay?" he asked.

"Yes, I mean, he was physically okay," she answered. "He… was obviously very depressed after it happened, you know. You were an amazing godfather to him. He loved you very much," she reassured him.

"Where was James? Why did they pretend to capture me?" Sirius was beginning to ask questions Hermione could not answer. She knew that as much as any person cared about their own life, Sirius cared about his friends lives even more. She had to draw a line somewhere. This was that place.

"You were the person Voldemort would have been able to trap, I can't go into more detail," she responded truthfully. Sirius wasn't stupid. Explicating anything would give him enough clues to guess the truth. Best to omit information instead.

"This happens when?"

"It would have been five years ago, during our fifth year. In my own timeline anyway." She saw him mentally chewing on this.

"So… that makes you 20, yeah? Harry is 20," he was talking to himself.

"Yes, Mrs. Weasley made him a lovely cake and we all celebrated in the garden," she offered, smiling, trying to offset the news she had just given him.

"Weasley?"

"Our other best friend, Ron… Harry's girlfriend's mom," she changed course mid-sentence.

"Blimey," he sighed. "Harry is older than I am now," he said in awe. "Has a girlfriend, helped defeat a dark wizard, dating a Weasley… really takes after James if he's gone after a red head," he mumbled. She sunk back into the couch making herself as small and unnoticeable as possible while he sorted through whatever he needed to sort through. Obviously his concern for Harry trumped his concern for his own life, which she had been counting on when she shared the information. It didn't completely cancel out the shock of finding out your future self is dead.

"I don't know what the point of it all is. For us to fight a war so that future generations can know peace if they end up having to fight the same war anyway and we just… die," he offered. He seemed overwhelmed, disheartened, and confused.

"Sirius, I'm sorry if I shouldn't have told you, if this was the wrong—" she answered quietly.

"No, I'm not upset that you told me. Everybody dies sometime. I… I'm just frustrated. It just seems like I've seen a lot of people die, get hurt, lose years that should have been innocent… just for it to not mean anything." He rubbed a hand over his face, parting his silky hair with his fingers. Hermione felt her breath hitch in her throat. She had never, ever been as addled by a man as she was around Sirius. She hadn't known him like this. The Sirius she had known had been paranoid and bitter. He had been kind and he loved Harry to the point of irrationality, but this Sirius was softer and more spirited. Something about him made her want to crawl into his lap and bury her face into his chest, like he could somehow bring her back to life after years of feeling adrift.

"It did mean something," she told him, eyes wide and earnest. She sat up and leaned towards him placing a hand on his knee. His grey eyes connected with hers and twisted her stomach in a knot. She felt so guilty crushing on Harry's godfather. More accurately, she felt so guilty crushing on Harry's godfather while comforting him from information about his own death that she had given him.

"I promise you, lives were also saved. Voldemort won't ever hurt anyone ever again. Honestly… the world is better where I come from than it has been in a long time," she reassured him, knowing it rang somewhat hollow. She thought of Ron, decomposing in the cold earth and she knew that lives saved didn't always make the lives lost feel worth it.

She couldn't tell if he'd been reassured or not, his face was unreadable. She had never exactly planned for a scenario in which she would meet the younger self of a dead This whole situation was a mess.

And what was she supposed to do about this situation? Was she thrown here to keep Sirius company in no man's land? Was she supposed to help him return to his own time stream? Was she just _stuck _here for no good reason at all? Was this another dream that she was going to wake up from? She realized she'd been making eye contact with Sirius for way too long, and he had maintained the eye contact with equal intensity. She couldn't tell what was going through his mind only that whatever it was made her spine tingle and her knees feel like jelly.

"I…" he said, eyes falling to her lips. Did she imagine it? Or was he actually leaning closer? He covered her hand with his own, the touch comfortable and familiar while being completely novel and thrilling.

"Sirius?" she whispered, her voice full of questions.

"Would you stay here? With me?" he asked.

"You mean, here? In the house?"

"I mean, don't leave me alone? I've been alone… so long. I never thought it would end. I can't stand to be alone anymore," he pleaded. He squeezed her hand ever so slightly, but that little squeeze was all it took for her to feel his vulnerability. She nodded.

"Yes, I'll stay with you," she agreed, not wanting to be alone herself right now. She couldn't imagine how eerie that had to feel for him.

"Hermione."

"Yes, Sirius?" she noticed that they were still holding hands. She made no move to pull away, enjoying their contact for as long as she could get away with.

"Did you say there was whispering? From the archway… where I, ya know, fell?"

"Well, it's hard to say if there were any actual voices or if it was just a draft, but yes," she replied, somewhat confused.

"I don't want to sound crazy, but—sometimes, I swear, I hear someone whispering to me," he confided uneasily.

Well if this didn't make everything even more interesting and strange than it already was, Hermione thought to herself.


	8. Shifting

**AN: Sunday, update day! I'm really starting to hit my stride I think with this story, it's so much fun to write! Let me know what you think! **

Hermione's entire body was stiff and sore. She had told Sirius she would stay with him. They continued talking for a while but at some point in their conversation she noticed he had fallen asleep. His head was resting on the arm of the sofa, his chest rising and falling slowly. She felt her heart speed up, she suddenly felt unsure of what to do in this situation. Should she move him to a more comfortable position? Should she try to sleep on the other side of the couch? Reaching a decision, she had gingerly lifted his legs onto the length of the sofa and cast a cushioning charm under his neck so he wouldn't have a cramp the next day. She had cast a cushioning charm for herself on the floor adjacent to the couch and covered herself with a blanket that had been draped on one of the arm chairs. It wasn't the most comfortable but she didn't want to make any assumptions.

She opened her eyes, prepared to find a dying fire in the grate and a snoring Sirius behind her. Instead, she discovered she was lying on the floor of Sirius' bedroom, daylight filtering in through the windows. The faded Muggle posters were looking at her, as vacant and scantily clad as ever. How did she end up in Sirius' room? They'd fallen asleep in the sitting room… She felt a weight on her chest that hadn't been there when she'd closed her eyes. Sitting up slowly, she noticed the sapphire pendant on her chest. She felt panic rising. Scrambling to her feet she ran down the hallway.

"Sirius?" she called out. "Sirius!" she yelled louder, opening each door in the hallway. He was either a very heavy sleeper or… After not getting an answer back she scrambled down the stairs, out the front door and onto a busy London sidewalk. Her jaw dropped.

"What… the… FUCK."

Hermione was reeling. What had just happened? Had she traveled to another dimension? Had she perhaps only manifested in another dimension where Sirius happened to be trapped? Or had this all just been another strange dream? Not sure what else to do, she walked back into the house. She needed a cup of tea, maybe something stronger. What time was it anyway? She peeked at the grandfather clock in the foyer and saw that it was half past two in the afternoon. She had only arrived here a few hours ago, assuming she hadn't slept an entire day through.

The left side of Hermione's brain wanted to chalk it all up to stress. But as logical as she would like to be, she couldn't deny the visceral truth of the experience. She had been having strange dreams about Sirius ever since she had returned to Grimmauld Place a few short days ago. These dreams led her to a mystical artifact that clearly possessed unusual qualities to say the least, not to mention its ostentatiousness. If this necklace was enchanted, perhaps it acted as a portal between worlds. Something about her visit to the house had awakened it, however it had come to be in Sirius's things. The necklace was the door, sleep was the key to walk through it.

Now that she was awake, the pendant hung from her neck like any other piece of jewelry would. There was no mystical beckoning, she didn't feel any power emanating from it the way she had before.

She crumpled at the kitchen table, folding her arms and resting her head on their surface. Her anxiety was running high, questions swirling in her head like a tempest in a bottle. If Sirius was alive in a parallel universe, that might mean he was waking up to find her gone. He was alone again, probably feeling abandoned because she had disappeared despite promising to stay close. If Sirius was alive in that parallel universe, perhaps he had never died to begin with. It didn't explain everything, but it was perhaps presumptuous to assume he had died just because his body had vanished.

If she had gone to Sirius' world, how much time would pass while she was away? Would he age? Would he stay the exact same as she had found him? Was he like a beetle, frozen in time in a piece of amber? The stakes for figuring out what was going on were high—for Sirius' life, as well as for her sanity. Getting up from the table, she knew she had to do something. She climbed up the stairs to the Black family library and began gathering any book she could find that had anything to do with Morgana, enchanted jewelry, any mythical legend that could explain dimensional travel. She wished that she could find something on the Department of Mysteries or the veil hidden within the bowels of the Ministry, but even the Black family library didn't house volumes on government secrets.

She piled the books up in her arms and carefully made her way down the stairs. Closing the door firmly behind her, she turned on the spot and apparated into her foyer. She needed to start going through these right away. She vanished everything currently taking up space on her kitchen table and began to lay books out for research. The pendant still lay around her neck, just below her heart, as she skimmed and marked sections of relevant literature.

The sun was beginning to fall in the sky, the clouds were painted pink and orange, dancing in the corners of her windows. She didn't notice. Time was becoming more and more abstract as a concept the longer she remained connected to the mystery of Sirius and his ageless dimension. There were mentions of Morgana and her prized amulet, but no mentions of its capabilities. What powers it possessed were not recorded in the texts she had access to. Research on alternate dimensions was also quite limited, which Hermione didn't find surprising since it seemed to be a topic more aligned with the interests of muggle physicists. She felt tears start to well in her eyes in frustration. What was she doing? Was there any point to this? Would she ever be able to make contact with Sirius again?

She knew she couldn't mention this to Harry. Telling Harry meant confessing to some unusual visits to Grimmauld, as well as some contact with Sirius in dreams, as well as giving him potentially false hope about the retrieval of his godfather. Hermione wondered, could anyone wearing Morgana's pendant access the time pocket that Sirius had fallen into? Or was it just her? She wouldn't dream of getting Harry involved unless she knew more about the properties of the necklace and what the logistics of crossing over entailed.

Hermione did not notice the hands of the clock turning. Ten o'clock passed. Then eleven o'clock, then midnight. Around one in the morning her eyes began to droop. She rubbed them, hoping to massage away the blurry effect the pages were beginning to take on but it was futile. What if she just closed her eyes for a moment? A short doze wouldn't hurt, in fact, Hermione knew that it would help once she awakened again. Sighing, she kicked off her shoes and lay down on her sofa, covering her shoulders with an afghan.

She closed her eyes, and tried to allow her worries and cares to fade away. She was Hermione Granger, goddammit. When had she ever failed at anything that truly mattered? No one was more capable or qualified to unravel this mystery than her. No one was as motivated. If this amulet had chosen her to cross the barrier of space, then it had to be for a good reason. What if it was actually possible to remove Sirius from the pocket of time he had found himself in? What if there was a possibility of restoration?

She began to drift off, visions of Sirius dancing in her head. As thrilled as she would be for Harry, there was a large part of her that was humming at the possibility of bringing Sirius into _her _life in a permanent way. The dreams she'd had were impossibly vivid. She could practically feel his fingers inside of her wet heat that very moment, see his mischievous grin, hear his seductive dirty whispering in her ears. As she sunk deeper into sleep, the feelings became more consuming. His hands running down her legs, cupping her breasts, sucking her neck. It was heady, it made her feel reckless and alive for the first time in 6 years. He was touching her face, her arms, her thighs, her shoulders. He was shaking her by her shoulders.

This was _not _sensual. This was—what was going on? She felt his grip tighten around her shoulders, then he placed a hand behind her back. She felt a wall behind her. A wall? She was asleep on her couch? She blinked her eyes open to see Sirius staring at her with obvious concern. "Hermione?" he asked, alarm evident in his voice.

"Sirius, where-?" she queried groggily.

"Where do you think?" he replied, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

"What happened?" She was back in the time pocket, it would seem. Was that all it took? Falling asleep? What was the trigger mechanism for this pendant, she wondered. It's behavior was not altogether consistent. It clearly was not tethered to locale since she had experienced dreams in her own home and now had returned to Sirius's universe (for lack of a better term). It also no longer exhibited a hypnotic function, leading her to believe that the object initially invoked obsessive thought to get her attention but having served its purpose it now functioned passively. She needed more time with the books she'd recovered from the Black library to ascertain what type of enchantment the necklace contained.

"What happened is that you told me you would stay with me, had disappeared when I woke up, and now I find you crumpled over at the top of my stairs," he answered curtly, interrupting her rapid fire logical deductions.

"How long was I gone?"

"A few hours maybe? I'm not sure, time isn't very regular here as you know," he huffed.

"Sirius, I'm so sorry, I didn't plan to leave you, I didn't realize I could," she tried to explain, putting a hand on the top of her throbbing head. Her entire body felt like it was pulsating.

"Sure, kid," he replied, interrupting her before she could make them both uncomfortable with her profusion of apologies. She took a better look at him now that her eyes had had a moment to adjust. God he was handsome, she thought to herself. He was propped in front of her leaning on one knee with his silky dark hair floating in front of his face. His grey eyes were piercing.

"Help me up?" she asked, lightheaded still. He rocked backwards, popping up on his feet. The way he carried himself, the way he moved… Hermione was used to clumsy, awkward boys. Sirius oozed charisma. He took her hand in his own and gently tugged her off the floor. "Thanks."

She now realized she had no idea what to do. Where does one go from here? She'd given him explanations before, she didn't need to fill in too many more of the gaps now for him about his life and his place in the world—or outside it, as it happened to be. What was she supposed to do next?

"Cuppa?" he asked, accurately ascertaining her bemused expression. He quirked a brow at her, the corner of his mouth hinting at a smile.

"Fuck it, we're English," she answered. His smile grew wide and he laughed.

"What's so funny?" she demanded from him.

"You," he answered. "Saying fuck? God you struck me as far more swotty and uptight than that!" he exclaimed, clearly reveling in the incredulity of her face.


End file.
